The Sky at Night

Flamsteed was England’s first Astronomer Royal, charged with improving star positions accurately enough to determine longitude at sea. In 1676, he completed the building of the Greenwich Observatory. 

Flamsteed’s star atlas, posthumously published, became the most celebrated and influential star atlas of the 18th century. At the time, it was the largest star atlas ever printed. Its 28 copperplate engravings include 25 double-page star charts and 2 double-page planisphere maps. 

Constellation figures are viewed from the front, matching the traditional names of stars. Sir James Thornhill was among the artists who designed the constellation figures in a Rococo style that was soon copied in Paris and Berlin. 

Flamsteed determined star positions using observing instruments equipped with telescopic sights (a first among major atlases). 

Isaac Newton relied on Flamsteed’s star coordinates, made available to him at an earlier date, for his theory of universal gravitation and explanation of the motion of the Moon. 

More than 3,000 stars are presented, double the number in Hevelius.

A Note on Celestial Coordinates

Earlier atlases were based on the great circle of the Sun’s annual path around the sky, called the “ecliptic.” Celestial “longitude” measures in degrees along the ecliptic, and celestial “latitude” measures in degrees perpendicular to the ecliptic. The ecliptic is angled at 23.5 degrees from the Earth’s equator. Because the ecliptic and the Earth’s equator do not coincide, celestial latitude and celestial longitude do not coincide with terrestrial latitude and longitude.

Flamsteed’s atlas was the first major atlas to use a grid based not on the ecliptic, but on the Earth’s geographical coordinates. Flamsteed thus introduced the convention now used in modern star atlases where the Earth’s equator, projected into the sky as the celestial equator, is (now) marked off in “hours” and “minutes” of “Right Ascension,” corresponding to terrestrial longitude. The Earth’s latitude circles are projected into the sky as circles of “Declination,” measured in degrees north or south of the celestial equator. 

This magnificent atlas fused artistic beauty and scientific precision. Bode, director of the Observatory of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, produced the last of the four major celestial atlases in which artful depictions of constellation figures appear alongside the most up-to-date scientific data. 

20 large copperplate engravings plot more than 17,000 stars, far more than any previous atlas. Bode included new stars for the southern hemisphere, along with constellations recently invented by Hevelius and Lacaille. 

Bode depicted more than 100 constellations, compared with 88 officially recognized today. Some which appeared in this atlas for the first time, but are not officially recognized today, include the Cat, the Printing Press, the Montgolfier Balloon, and the Electric Generator. 

Bode also included 2,500 cloudy patches, or “nebula,” cataloged by William Herschel.

Bode included two planisphere plates.  They are not southern and northern hemispheres; each one has Polaris at the top and the south pole at the bottom.  Each one is centered upon an equinox point (where the ecliptic or path of the Sun and the celestial equator intersect).  The March equinox point was in Aries in antiquity; by Bode’s time, due to the precession of the equinoxes, it had shifted to Pisces.  The September equinox point was in Libra in antiquity; by Bode’s time it had shifted to Virgo.  Bode titled the plates as the Aries and Libra planispheres. Click the links below for more information on the planisphere plates.

Earlier, in 1782, Bode published a small-format atlas based on a Paris edition of Flamsteed.

The four great celestial atlases of Bayer, Hevelius, Flamsteed and Bode were each distinctive in their artistic style as well in their scientific importance. After Bode, this fusion of art and science in celestial atlases ceased, as scientific atlases no longer held room to include artistic constellation figures.

Key to the plates / sample constellation prominent on each plate:

1. Plate I: Aries hemisphere.
2. Plate II: Libri hemisphere.
3. Plate III: Draco.
4. Plate IV: Andromeda.
5. Plate V: Auriga.
6. Plate VI: Ursa Major.
7. Plate VII: Bootes.
8. Plate VIII: Cygnus.
9. Plate IX: Ophiuchus.
10. Plate X: Pegasus.
11. Plate XI: Aries.
12. Plate XII: Orion.
13. Plate XIII: Leo.
14. Plate XIV: Virgo.
15. Plate XV: Sagittarius.
16. Plate XVI: Aquarius.
17. Plate XVII: Cetus.
18. Plate XVIII: Canis Major.
19. Plate XIX: Hydra.

The title page makes an additional plate for a total of 20.

Von Littrow, Director of the Vienna Observatory, adopted Bode’s constellation figures and star positions. In von Littrow’s atlas, the constellation figures appear faintly in the background. 

After Bode’s monumental production, scientific star atlases became more specialized in scope, or dispensed altogether with the artistic depiction of constellation figures. No longer was there room for both artistic figures and scientific observation to contribute to the presentation on equal terms.

This dialogue between a mother and her daughter offers a delightful introduction to the night sky. It contains 23 engraved plates drawn by Whitwell herself, including four hand-colored folding plates. One of the plates depicts the constellations of Corvus the Crow, Crater the Cup and Hydra the Water Snake. Another plate conveys a dramatic impression of the Full Moon at night, shown against a striking black background.

Whitwell, who also wrote on economics and education, taught at Robert Owen’s school at New Lanarck, Scotland, in the 1820′s. Owen later came to America and founded a utopian socialist colony in Indiana called New Harmony.